Free Republic

President Obama warned workers at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: implement executive amnesty, or else. He made the comments in a town hall event on immigration on MSNBC. According to the White House pool report, President Obama was asked for reassurance that people wouldn't be deported as the legal battle over the executive amnesty plays out in the courts. “Until we pass a law through Congress, the executive actions we’ve taken are not going to be permanent; they are temporary. There are going to be some jurisdictions and there may be individual ICE official or Border Control agent not...

Thirty House Republicans are calling on their leadership to continue to stand firm against calls for a so-called “clean” Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill — or one free of House-passed riders blocking President Obama’s executive amnesty. In a letter dispatched Wednesday to House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) the lawmakers, led by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), argued that the House must continue to fight against Obama’s executive actions using the “power of the purse.” “American voters supported our position of opposing executive overreach during the November elections, and are solely...

(CNSNews.com)- House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said on the House floor on Tuesday that if Congress did not pass a Department of Homeland Security funding bill by the end of the week, it would shut down the department—but that 200,000 of the department’s 230,000 employees would still go to work. The other 30,000 employees are not deemed “essential” workers. “The Department of Homeland Security will not be funded,” said Hoyer. “There are 230,000 people who work at that Department, and 30,000 of them, mostly administrative personnel, will be laid off. The others, known as critically important important—essential employees who are...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faced a backlash Wednesday from conservatives after backing off demands that Congress reverse President Obama’s immigration executive actions as a condition for funding the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, voiced support for the new plan after initially staying coy. A day earlier, McConnell, R-Ky., effectively gave them what they’ve been demanding – by agreeing to hold a stand-alone vote on a DHS funding bill, with no immigration measures attached. “We are going to do everything we can to make sure it passes by an overwhelming vote. I think virtually every Democrat will vote...

<p>The Hill is asking House Republicans if they’d support a clean funding bill. We’ll be updating this list continually.</p> <p>John Carter (Texas) — The chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing Homeland Security says the funding legislation written by his staff is “a good bill.”</p>

The Obama administration chooses amnesty madness over domestic security. Unless the issue is resolved between now and Friday, there will be a “shutdown” of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) due to the GOP’s determination to withhold funding for President Obama’s dubious immigration agenda. The quotes around the word shutdown reflect the fatuousness behind the hysteria being whipped up by the Obama administration and their media allies. That’s because 80 percent of the DHS’s 240,000 employees are deemed “essential,” and will continue to work, albeit without receiving paychecks until the dispute is resolved. Nonetheless Sen. Tom Carper, senior Democrat on...

Senate Democrats are considering a shift in strategy that could offer a resolution to a long Senate impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security — and put more pressure on House Speaker John Boehner. The Senate minority is now considering accepting Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s offer to vote on a bill funding DHS that is not tied to efforts to block President Barack Obama’s immigration strategy. That move would come after Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had said on Tuesday that he would not move forward with McConnell’s proposal to vote on a “clean” funding bill that keeps DHS...

A look at some closed-doors negotiations involving the Homeland Security Department funding bill shows things are heating up among Republicans trying to hammer out a deal. And at the center of it all is Alabama's Jeff Sessions. Politico detailed a recent Senate Republican meeting in a story yesterday. The negotiations center on a bill that would keep DHS funded through the end of the year. The measure has already passed the House but has stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition to the inclusion of repeal of President Obama's immigration orders. Some Senators are calling for a "clean" bill...

Another empty threat or the last straw?This is noteworthy, I think, not so much because there’s a legit prospect of mutiny as because it shows what a total strategic clusterfark the whole cromnibus/DHS/amnesty fiasco has been. Not only are Republicans at each other’s throats, there’s a nonzero chance that DHS may shut down this week because the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate simply can’t get on the same page. Imagine that. Imagine if the first big legislative standoff in the new GOP Congress ends with a stalemate between the two chambers rather than a stalemate between the GOP...

Top Democrats said Feb. 23 they will hold the homeland security budget hostage until the GOP’s House caucus agrees to quit its popular anti-amnesty efforts. “If we are going to avoid a government shutdown on the Department of Homeland Security, we need a commitment from Speaker Boehner that we have a bipartisan, bicameral approval to end this deadlock,” Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters during a Tuesday press conference in the Senate. Durbin spoke shortly after the Senate’s GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to submit to the Democrats’ demands that the DHS 2015 budget not curb spending on the...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has offered a new legislative solution to the Department of Homeland Security budget standoff, but the proposal would put House Speaker John Boehner in a tight spot with conservative lawmakers who see it as a copout. The House's bill to strip funding for President Barack Obama's immigration orders has failed to pass the Senate four times amid Democratic calls for a clean bill, and despite the fact that the GOP now control the Senate. In a bid to prevent a shutdown before the current funding arrangement expires on Feb. 27, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell...

A Department of Homeland Security report obtained by CNN last week indicates that DHS officials believe “right-wing sovereign citizen extremists” are as big a threat to the nation’s safety as Islamic extremists who sympathize with ISIS. CNN reported Friday that “federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to — and in some cases greater than — the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS…” From the report: The government says these are extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack...

The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on "right-wing" terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN's hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don't Say Islamic Extremism. Your tax dollars are once again hard at work -- defaming conservatives, deflecting from worldwide murderous jihad and denying the public access to information they funded. CNN splashed the big scoop on its website: "DHS intelligence report warns of domestic right-wing terror threat." The fear-mongering piece featured a huge map of 24 alleged acts of "violence by sovereign citizen extremists since 2010." CNN's Evan Perez and...

I told you guys the Senate GOP would screw us over on DHS funding, but even I had no idea Mitch McConnell would capitulate so easily. I assumed he’d do a major song and dance first, but instead he just went all Ned Beatty in Deliverance the moment Barack Obama looked at him funny. Good grief. Even CNN’s website declared that the Democrats were the ones blocking Department of Homeland Security Funding. McConnell behaved as if he needs testosterone injections. His minion in the press want everyone to know the steel in his spine, but it is more silly putty....

The first article of the Betrayal Papers asserted that the Muslim Brotherhood was not only influential in the United States government, but in fact dominated the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama. This article will name several key people who were or are in the Obama administration and who have various, documented associations with organizations which are directly tied to and/or funded by the Muslim Brotherhood and the State of Qatar (home to Brotherhood’s Spiritual Leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi). These individuals have helped dictate national security policies that have crippled counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad. Three more “Betrayal Papers” in...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday suggested lawmakers should keep a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tied to a controversial fight over immigration. The Alabama Republican rejected a narrative by Democrats and some Republicans that the immigration provision should be separated from the DHS bill because the issue is currently before the courts. A Texas judge last week temporarily halted the immigration actions President Obama unveiled last November. The Justice Department on Monday asked for an emergency court ruling to allow Obama's immigration action to go forward. “There is a reasonable chance that some court will...

Sad and disappointing but not a surprise. Sen. Mitch McConnell has showed himself to be the gutless wimp that we’ve all known he is. He has given the Democrats exactly what they have been demanding. In other words, Sen. Mitch McConnell, as majority leader, has shown the same feckless, flaccidity that he showed while minority leader. What he’s done is pass the buck back to the House: This is a shame. The issue is not only important but it is an easy win. It is the Democrats and the White House that need DHS funded. The GOP doesn’t. Something like...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative Republicans urged House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner not to capitulate in a fight with Democrats over President Barack Obama's immigration policy that threatens a partial Homeland Security shutdown later this week. The conservative lawmakers, led by Representative Jeff Duncan, circulated a letter to Boehner and other House leaders telling them to hold the line in opposing Obama's executive actions shielding millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, a Duncan aide said on Tuesday. "Now is the time to stand firm against these unlawful executive actions," said the letter, signed by about 20 conservative Republicans so far.

Republican leadership in the Senate is fully caving to the demands of Democratic lawmakers calling for a so-called “clean” Department of Homeland Security funding bill that leaves President Obama’s executive amnesty intact, but Democrats are still balking at the plan. “I’ve indicated to the Democratic leader that I’d be happy to have his cooperation to advance consideration of a clean DHS bill, which would carry us through September 30,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters Tuesday. “With Democratic cooperation on a position they have been advocating for the last two months, we could have that vote very quickly.”...

For weeks, Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic minority -- with the explicit blessing of the White House -- have been blocking all debate on a House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The House legislation provides full appropriations for DHS, with the small exception of stripping out funds targeted for the implementation President Obama's unpopular and illegal (according to both a federal judge and Obama himself) executive amnesty fiat. Democrats in the upper chamber had already filibustered three attempts to take up, discuss, or amend the House's bill. Last night witnessed round four. Kudos to CNN for...